Bounty Set On Jet Hijackers

U.s. Will Pay $250,000 For Twa Pirates

October 18, 1985|By Glen Elsasser, Chicago Tribune.

WASHINGTON — The State Department offered a $250,000 reward Thursday for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of three men involved in last June`s hijacking of TWA Flight 847 during which a U.S. Navy diver was killed.

At the same time, the Justice Department publicly identified the three and announced unsealing of criminal complaints and arrest warrants charging air piracy and murder.

The hijackers were identified as Hasan `Izz-Al-din, Mohammad Hamadei and Ali Atwa. The first two boarded the plane in Athens and seized it on a flight to Rome.

Atwa, their accomplice, was left behind in Athens because the plane was full. The Greek government freed him in return for the release of Greek passengers.

The hijackers got away, and their whereabouts is not known.

The complaints and warrants had been filed in U.S. District Court here July 3, a few days after nearly 40 American hostages were released from captivity in Beirut.

The warrants were not disclosed until now because U.S. authorities unsuccessfully ``tried first to pursue these individuals privately,`` a Justice Department spokesman said.

The $250,000 reward was offered under a law passed by Congress last year that authorizes the secretary of state to pay bounties in cases of

international terrorism.

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese said the arrest warrants and the reward offer represent ``a determined, coordinated effort by the United States to bring those responsible for a notorious act of terrorism to justice, and to assert the need for the rule of law among nations of the world.``

The U.S. complaints could be used as the basis for an extradition request to a third country, according to the Justice Department. The United States has no extradition treaty with Lebanon.

Meese said the U.S. ``will use every legal weapon in our arsenal to track down and prosecute those who commit acts of international terrorism punishable under U.S. law.``

The militant Lebanese Shiites comandeered the American airliner June 14 and held it 17 days.

Early in the crisis they beat and shot to death Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, a passenger, and threw his body on the tarmac at the Beirut airport. The complaints, based on the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, accuse the three of using force and violence in seizing the jetliner and of murdering Stethem.

An affidavit supporting the arrest warrants says the three committed their crimes on ``an aircraft within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States.``

A Justice Department spokesman said the U.S. would proceed through extradition or other means--the use of international conventions on hijacking, for example--to try to get custody of the suspects.

A federal grand jury in Washington began investigating the hijacking in July, but Meese has declined to discuss its progress.

The release of the identities of the TWA hijackers came as the Reagan administration pushed its pursuit against terrorism and wrestled with the developments that followed the capture of four Palestine Liberation Front

But the Italians let PLF leader Mohammed Abbas leave Italy despite a U.S. request that he be held for extradition proceedings. Abbas had arrived in Italy along with the four hijackers when U.S. warplanes forced their Egyptian airliner to land at a NATO base in Sicily. The Italian government collapsed Thursday because of the controversial release of Abbas.

An American passenger on the Italian ship, Leon Klinghoffer, 69, was killed by the terrorists. The Reagan administration has maintained that Abbas was involved in the planning that led to the ship hijacking and should face charges in the Klinghoffer death and ship hijacking.